1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to health management and in particular to a method, system, and program for balancing the comprehensive health of a user. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method, system, and program for recommending actions to a user and scheduling tasks for the user in a manner as to balance the comprehensive health of the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
From visiting doctor's offices, to attending health clubs, to shopping at health food markets, it is well known that people struggle to find ways to maintain and achieve diverse health goals and levels. When feeling ill, or anticipating illness, such as from traveling or allergies, people request medication from their doctors to balance their health. Some people attempt to lose weight, while others attempt to gain weight or strength by attending a health club. Others' goals include attempts to rehabilitate from injuries, illness or surgery with a physical therapist. And yet, still others attempt to maintain certain nutritional or philosophical goals, such as not consuming animal products.
As is well known, multiple agencies, groups and professional people provide suggestions, guidelines, consulting and analysis in order to provide attainable steps towards a person's health goals. For example, the government provides a chart of recommended daily consumption. Organizations like Jenny Craig® provide people with a list of menus and food intake options. In addition, such organizations typically provide counseling and cooking techniques. Prescription medication companies provide advertising and free consultations to see whether their medication can alleviate pain or aid in meeting a health goal. Physical therapists prescribe particular exercises to facilitate rehabilitation. Gym trainers determine a strength training program that will help a person gain strength according to their health goals. Even some grocery stores provide consultants who direct a user to purchase certain types of products depending on their health goals.
Many health plans require a user to record information such as caloric or liquid intake and exercise and provide the recorded information to a consultant, who then determines whether the user is staying on track with health goals. However, manually recording daily calorie consumption, daily exercise, environmental factors and such can be time consuming and relies on the person to be efficient in personally tracking data. While checking in with a trained professional who has provided a fitness and/or eating plan is important and can aid a person in monitoring and meeting his/her goals, this system is not entirely efficient. Moreover, most programs do not easily accommodate for shifts in a person's schedule or in the environment. For example, most programs do not shift the amount of water recommended in a person's diet after they have hiked for 2 hours in 90 degree heat.
In addition, current health plans can not provide for making real time recommendations to a user about what actions would best meet the health goals of the user. For example, most health plans do not provide real time recommendations for selections from a particular food menu at a particular restaurant according to what a user has already eaten that day, how much exercise the user has done, what environment the user has been exposed to, what medications the user is taking, how much time the user has to eat, and how much money the user can spend on the meal.
Moreover, current health plans do not provide for making recommendations for scheduling multiple diverse tasks for a user in order to best meet the health goals of the user. Some health plans may recommend certain exercise times, however, most people balance many different responsibilities during the day including children, work, eating and exercising and current health plans do not adjust for the daily changes that may occur in a user's schedule because of all these factors.
Furthermore, current health plans only look at what a user eats and how much they exercise and do not attempt to balance all the factors that play into a user's overall well-being, herein termed comprehensive health. For example, how a user spends time, spends financial resources and treats his/her body all factor into a user's comprehensive health. In particular, current health plans do not provide for making scheduling recommendations for the multiple diverse tasks that a user needs to perform each day in order to balance the user's comprehensive health.
As the tide is turning towards a paperless world, computers are becoming more prevalent in order to replace many functions previously performed utilizing paper and people. In particular, computing devices, such as personal digital assistants, laptop computers and cellular/digital telephones are becoming more commonplace as a personal, portable computer system. In addition, personal storage devices that include limited processing power, such as smart cards, are becoming more prevalent as an easily transportable and secure way to transfer data. Moreover, the advent of the network, and particular the Internet, makes it possible for a user to access data stored at a particular location in the network from any other computer system with access to that network.
However, computers, smart cards and network systems have not yet been implemented in an efficient way as a personal health monitoring assistant to balance the comprehensive health of a user, including physical, mental and spiritual well-being. In view of the foregoing, it would be preferable to utilize a computing device such as a portable computer system, personal storage device, and/or network system to received monitored physical and environmental parameters of a user's health and recommend actions to a user in an attempt to balance a user's comprehensive health according to time, financial, and health allowances designated by the user, the personal health monitoring system, or a health consultant. In addition, it would be preferably to utilize the computing device to schedule tasks for a user in an attempt to balance the user's comprehensive health according to time, financial, and health allowances.